Thursday, 9 February 2017

Just imagine that.

I
blink at the screen like a confused owl, slightly amazed by so many kind
comments, both here and even more on Facebook. I always find it astonishing
that it is the posts about hopelessness and fecklessness and pointlessness that
get the biggest and most generous response. In a world gone mad, I tell myself
I must be cheerful and fine, that the tap shoes must go on and the show tunes be sung. Nobody wants to read about someone else’s problems, not when the world is so oppressed. No, no, no, make ‘em
laugh make ‘em laugh make ‘em laugh; that’s the ticket.

In
fact, when I write cheery posts, they are usually read by three men and a dog.
When I lose the edit button and have a proper wail, a chorus of strangers rises
up to cry: me too.

I
do know this and I always forget this and I’m always amazed by this.

Still,
I should not let this reminder allow me to tumble into self-indulgence. This is
not going to become a misery memoir. I’m going to keep it snappy. Because you
know, the will to live.

So,
it is now Day Four. To my intense delight, my mouth no longer feels as if
someone has lit a match in it. I feel this is surely a great step forward.
Every single Google search informs me that my body is now free of nicotine. Each
human I meet seems inordinately pleased that I shall no longer be ruthlessly poisoning
myself.

I spend a lot of time outside. I never smoked outside, it was always a
thing of office and desk and work, so I pull my trapper’s hat over my eyes and
stump off to HorseBack and do work there. When I get back, I take longer than usual with my own horses. I find
myself riding and laughing at five in the afternoon, because the end of the day
was always a real smoking point. If I’m outside, if I’m with the good equines,
then I’m all right.

And
then I go inside and this crazy haze of voices starts yelling at me: fuck
everyone, fuck it all, smoke your head off. Go on, shout the voices, you are
not one of those bourgeois sensible people who do the right thing. You are a
creative, you know no rules, you should live on the edge, play a little Russian
Roulette. And besides, shout the wild voices, what about Great-Aunt-Nellie with
her forty Woodbines a day and her still doing the Can-Can at ninety?

I
start to tell the voices to shut up. They are so loud and sweary and sneery.
They think I am a bore. Giving up smoking is such a bore. Depriving oneself of
anything is a bore.

Then
I think: no, no, First Amendment, freedom of speech, no safe spaces in this brain. So when I am walking back
from the horses in the chill and the gloaming, I say, out loud, to the shouty
voices: why do you want me to smoke?

They
get a bit stuttery and shuffly. They don’t really know. They’ve got a slight
self-destructive kick that they don’t especially want to talk about and there’s
something about dulling the senses that they can't entirely explain. The shouty voices don’t really want to
admit it but sometimes they find the world a bit much. It’s all a bit too big
and scary and indecipherable and if they are busy smoking they’ve got a faint
haze between them and the impossible stuff.

I
stare at the shouty voices. ‘Oh my goodness,’ I say to them. ‘You are more
properly nuts than I am. You actually believe that if you stay in your room and
smoke you won’t have to worry quite so much about what is going on in the labyrinthine
head of Donald Trump.’

They
really are shuffling their feet now. They sort of do think that.

Somehow,
I have no idea how, smoking for me has become a retreat, a pulling up of the
drawbridge, a defence. I feel startled and mildly ashamed. I thought I was the
bold sort who looked fears in the whites of their eyes. It turns out I’d really
like to stop the world and get off. It turns out that I’ve turned tobacco into
some kind of analgesic.

So
the cravings come, hard now, with all their bonkers irrationality and their
shouty voices. I reckon I’ve had about eight today and I’ve seen them off with
a variety of tactics.

Tomorrow,
I think, faintly, my cilia might start moving again. The cilia are beautiful
and vital and I was paralysing them. Imagine, I say sternly to the shouty
voices, those little darlings wafting about again like Noel Coward wannabees at
a cocktail party or young artists interpreting the world through the medium of
dance.

6 comments:

"I never smoked outside". That left me wondering about the last time I saw someone smoking inside. And I find it was so long ago I really can't remember when. Years, certainly. That's a remarkable change in our lifetime.

To be honest, I'm a tad conflicted about cheering you on. You seem to be the last of the smoking Mohicans. Not sure you shouldn't be digging in and raging against the dying of the light. Besides, once they've done for you, they'll be after the drinkers...

.... And another thing that really kept me going - I thought about having to tell everyone if it ever transpired that I hadn't been as lucky as Great Aunt Nellie - I decided then I would do everything I could to avoid that!

.... And another thing that really kept me going - I thought about having to tell everyone if it ever transpired that I hadn't been as lucky as Great Aunt Nellie - I decided then I would do everything I could to avoid that!

Wafting about like Noel Coward wannabees. I love it: all those years of science and I never thought of them like that. Oh Tania, you have no idea how your blog cheers me up on these dark days. KBO indeed. Emily xxx

So much yay for you, not least for the giving up, more the confronting of the bits of you that want to smoke...yes, having listened to chests of the far far more numerous NOT Great Aunt Nellies and empathetically cringed at the rattles therein, that makes me scream giveupgiveupgiveup fer gawds sake, but it's so utterly inspiring to read your words surrounding how you are giving up. Love it. Brave lady. KBO as Emily says and please, for the rest of us, keep sharing xxx

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